1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to devices and techniques for monitoring a computer system. More specifically, the present invention relates to techniques for determining locations of servers in a data center based on vibration spectra.
2. Related Art
Modern data centers typically contain hundreds and even thousands of servers. Managing these servers is becoming an increasingly complicated and expensive task. For example, different servers within the same data center may be configured differently and may consequently require different software and different drivers. Moreover, servers typically consume significant amounts of power depending upon load. Consequently, the resulting thermal load and the associated cooling requirements for servers can vary dynamically, as different workloads are executed over time.
In order to address these challenges and effectively manage a data center, it is useful to be able to determine the locations of individual servers in the data center (which, for example, allows the spatial dynamic thermal load and cooling requirements to be determined). However, this seemingly mundane task is complicated by the sheer magnitude of the number of servers. For example, manually collecting and storing server locations for thousands of servers is a tedious and error-prone task. Moreover, the locations of specific servers can change over time as system operators replace, upgrade and relocate assets in a data center, which makes it even more difficult to maintain accurate server location information.
Hence, there is a need for other techniques to effectively determine the locations of servers and other assets within a data center.